Using blogs in qualitative educational research: an exploration of method

Abstract

When compared with wider social research, qualitative educational research has been relatively slow to take up online research methods (ORMs). There is some very notable research in the area but, in general, ORMs have not achieved wide applicability in qualitative educational contexts apart from research that is inherently linked to the Internet, for example, research on educational technologies or students' online behaviour. This paper demonstrates how ORMs can be useful in qualitative research projects. It describes how on-going, reflective, qualitative data were collected using a popular, community-based online tool -blogs. The research project that utilized this approach aimed to trace how a group of international students in the United Kingdom responded to their new environment over six months. This article attempts to provide a new understanding on the use of blogs as a tool for data collection.

Perspectives on social media in and as research: A synthetic review

“…Grounded theory approaches also appear to be particularly helpful in analysing large corpora of online text (e.g. Gruzd et al, 2012aGruzd et al, , 2012bHarricharan & Bhopal, 2014).…”

“…Quinton, 2013), with subjects being recruited and asked to use SoMe to record refl ections and experiences on blogs or other platforms (e.g. Harricharan & Bhopal, 2014). In this way new data is produced by participants ' engagement through SoMe.…”

“…Harricharan & Bhopal, 2014) or even simply requiring participants to create a Twitter account, which could then be evaluated looking either at the content of tweets (e.g. Hemsley et al, 2014) or at the network structure, obtaining a macro-view of the research area (Gruzd et al, 2012a).…”

‘I have a love–hate relationship with ATLAS.ti’™: integrating qualitative data analysis software into a graduate research methods course

“…They did this on individual blogs (Harricharan and Bhopal 2014) in which they were to reflect regularly on course readings and their learning experiences, including their use of ATLAS.ti TM . These, and the instructor's, reflections were valuable as formative evaluation data points throughout the course and served as an important data source for the current paper.…”

Building bridges: the use of reflective oral diaries as a qualitative research tool

“…Diaries have many different structures and formats and written reflections are common but technology has created new opportunities for diary keeping (Alaszewski 2006) for example video self-report accounts and even blogs which have been considered as online versions of diaries (Hookaway 2008: Harricharan andBhopal 2014). Block (1996) used audio devices to record the oral diaries of a range of participants in classroom based research.…”